Ancel: Beyond Good and Evil 2 Announcement Possible ‘in the Next Year’

Ubisoft Montpellier's Michel Ancel has updated Eurogamer on the status of Beyond Good & Evil 2 and said an announcement is possible over the course of the next year.

Ancel says that with the development of the delayedRayman Legends now complete "We need to build the team and retrieve the elements that we worked on," he says of the project which began eight years ago.

Ancel would not be drawn on when the game might be re-announced but said "I don't want to say things in terms of time that will make people disappointed – it will really depend on the speed that we will make things for that game.

"We've made a lot of things already. Now we need to put them together and make that game. If there would by any communication it will be in the next year, just trying to talk about the fact that we are on it. But so many people in Ubisoft want to make that game, honestly."

Ancel adds that he was disappointed with how little of Beyond Good & Evil's world, Hillys (and part of the planet's moon), could be explored in the game and says the sequel will be much more open.

"In Beyond Good & Evil 1 at first it was a full planet, you could go to the North Pole and see the eternal day," he said. "But we had to limit it as we were only 35 people. We couldn't fill the whole world with all the things we wanted. We were frustrated at the end of BG&E1, and when we started the sequel we started again with this idea – you're free and can investigate and travel the world as much as you want.

"We wanted to not make this experience [BG&E2] linear, to give the player freedom to explore planet to planet, city to city – and not empty cities of course. So these are things we worked on."

Despite this, he insists they don't want to develop another Assassin's Creed and the game will very much be about Jade and the world of Hillys.

Ancel has previously said the game would be "possible but it would be painful" on current consoles and given the scope of the game it seems he wants to create the added power of the PS4 and Xbox One will likely see the title come to those platforms.